


temporary tattoos make meaningful love tokens

by Siriusstuff



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (because they're kids), Alternate Universe, Derek and Stiles are kids, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Pre-Slash, Scott's a kid, So are Laura and Cora, Trick or Treating, halloween fic, halloween fluff, nobody's de-aged, omc and other characters mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 04:39:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4990546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siriusstuff/pseuds/Siriusstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trick-or-treating with young Stiles, Scott, Derek and his sisters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	temporary tattoos make meaningful love tokens

**Author's Note:**

> There's no de-aging here. This fic takes place when everybody (except for their parents of course) is still a kid.  
> In my AUs (still WIP) I tend to restore Derek's family, returning to him his older and younger sisters and brothers. But in this fic Derek's only siblings are Laura and Cora.

"Trick a treat!" Stiles chirped at the unopened door. Scott echoed him at about a half second’s delay.

"You _wait_ till somebody opens the door," Derek instructed the boys, " _then_ you say that."

"I know!" Stiles fired back, again with a Scott-echo.

Derek knew better than to mount an argument against the Mario Bros.

A smiling older lady cradling an enormous bowl of candy opened the door to renewed outbursts of "trick a treat!" from Stiles and his "brother" Scott, both eagerly holding out their trick-or-treat sacks.

Derek, being nine, maintained his dignity and did not shout the words.

The lady exclaimed a theatrical, "Oh my goodness!" and asked Stiles, "Who are _you_?"

"I’m Mario an’ this is my brother Louie-gee but he’s not _reeeally_ my brother but becuz we’re Mario _Brothers_ an’ his _real_ name is Scott an’ he’s my _best friend!_ " Stiles took a short breath. "An’ this is Derek he’s a _pirate_ an’ that’s Laura I don’ know what she is an’ she’s holdin' Cora."

The woman’s scan of the little crowd stopped at Derek. "You’re a very dashing swashbuckler, young man."

Derek had a red and a black bandana wrapped round his forehead. He’d daubed his chin and cheeks with ashy looking stubble and, best of all, he had a black eye-patch. Between Laura’s and his mom’s searches a red striped shirt and a vest that looked piratey enough had been recovered from some closets’ depths. A plastic cutlass hung at Derek’s side.

He heard Laura snort.

Stiles piped up instantly. "He’s _not_ a—a—what you said, lady. He’s a—pi—!"

Derek interrupted Stiles with, "Swashbuckler’s another way to say pirate, Stiles."

"It _is_?"

"Yes.—Please excuse him, ma’am. He’s four."

"Four an’ a half!" Stiles clarified.

"Oh, honey, he’s darling," the woman answered Derek. She’d been dropping ample handfuls of candy into all the bags—and it was the _good_ stuff, mini bags of M &M’s, Reese’s Pieces, tiny Tootsie Rolls, mini Snickers, Mars and Butterfinger bars. Derek saw Starburst and Twizzlers too. It was the candy mother lode. Even Derek’s eyes were wide.

Once the woman got to Cora, in Laura’s arms, "And _you_ are _adorable_!" she warbled.

Something between ballerina and clown (as designed by Laura) Cora had red dots on her nose and cheeks, a floppy pointed hat, multi-colored polka dotted shirt and leggings, plus multi-colored tutu, all offset by the dour look on her little face.

The woman’s glance bounced between Cora and Laura, who was holding out a single trick-or-treat bag.

"Only one?" the woman asked.

"Oh, we’re sharing," Laura explained.

" _Uhn uhn!_ " Stiles cried, clasping his bag of treats protectively to his chest.

" _Stiles_ ," Derek stage-whispered, "She means _she and Cora_ are sharing."

"Dear, there’s plenty for everybody," the woman assured, dropping a second handful into Laura’s bag.

"What’s up with you and that kid?" Laura quizzed Derek as they walked back to where their mothers waited on the sidewalk.

"Don’t want anyone to be upset."

Before she could be overheard by Talia, "You’re so weird," Laura sighed.

" _Mommy! Reese’s Pieces!_ " Stiles broadcast, in a hushed shriek.

Claudia took a peek at Stiles’s mounting horde of goodies in its red sack with a big black "M" printed on it. "Did you thank her?" she asked her son, whose exaggerated Mario Bros.’ moustache looked both ridiculous and adorable starting under Stiles’s nose and curling onto his cheeks. She’d painted the same thing on Scott’s face too.

Derek realized he hadn’t said "thank you" either or reminded Stiles and Scott to say it. He’d been a little dazzled by the lady’s lavish provisions of candy, maybe.

A little more than half a block after leaving their cars Cora decided she wanted to be carried and Laura picked her up, in sisterhood.

When after a little while Talia informed Cora she must give Laura a break, Cora, in sisterly fashion, didn’t protest.

Free of Cora’s heft Laura stretched her arms outward and upward. They knocked into her long antenna topped with stars and sent them rocking (but so did every footstep.) Covering only her eyes was a golden mask and from her shoulders flowed a shimmery lavender cape.

To Derek’s question what her costume was supposed to be, she’d answered, "I’m an elemental." Derek had let it go at that.

Laura told Derek if they lived in town, not in the woods, they would probably live in the neighborhood they were walking in at that moment, and Derek reminded her she told him that every Halloween.

Every house, all of them large, had at least some Halloween decorations up and some were very elaborate—faux graveyards to a row of six-foot sheaves of corn bound together with weatherproof ribbons dangling bundles of multicolored corn. Derek liked the latter type the most. He wasn’t a fan of creepy things.

Derek was letting Stiles pull him along. Stiles had insisted at the start he’d hold no one’s hand except Derek’s. Meanwhile Scott would hold nobody’s but Stiles’s. That worked well, Derek thought, because it freed his left hand to hold Stiles’s and his own trick-or-treat bags.

Derek could hear the non-stop chatter between the Mario Bros. It was better, Derek told himself, that it was Scott, not Derek, having to listen to Stiles’s constantly talking and talking like that.

Stiles was making the decisions about which houses to visit too, surprisingly skipping the occasional house which he indicated with a simple, "Not this one." Not even the moms could figure out his never-spoken reasons but Claudia was still learning when to trust her son’s sometimes baffling hunches.

"Let’s go back now, that way," Talia pointed towards a street not yet tapped for treats. She was sure the haul of candy—which she was most definitely going to dole out piece by piece, even if it took weeks—was abundant.

By the time the orange lights strung up everywhere were twinkling, the trick-or-treaters had circled back to their vehicles. Talia and Claudia had already decided it. Since Sheriff John was working a double shift due to its being Halloween, and Melissa was still stuck at the hospital, Stiles and his mom and Scott would share pizza with the Hales.

Stiles was gleeful, and for that feeling he had varying reasons.

Derek was very pleased as well, because candy _and_ pizza _—and—_!

Talia was sure nothing could spoil her children’s appetite for pizza so she offered hot chocolate to all as soon as she entered the kitchen where husband Malcolm was setting the table simply.

But there was a more immediate concern than delicious hot chocolate.

"Mom, _please_?" Stiles was suddenly pleading.

"Please, what?" Claudia asked, before just as suddenly adding on, "You can’t have candy before dinner, Stiles. No way."

"I know!" Stiles proclaimed, indignant at actually being suspected of such an unthinkable demand. "But I _need_ to open all the _little_ bags!" He already had such a bag in hand hidden in the sack.

"Alright, but—"

Instantly Stiles tore open the paper bag spilling a lollipop and candy corn.

Scott was doing the same when Claudia herded the pair to the parlor. Cora followed with Laura behind her and Derek the last.

Claudia remained to make sure no sampling occurred.

Some little bags held glow sticks, packs of stickers, non-candy things. Laura got a bag with finger puppets in it. One of Stiles’s bags contained soft rubber bracelets in neon tones.

The red bracelet caught his eye and he slipped his hand through it but once Cora saw the fluorescent yellow, green and orange ones she reached for them with her free hand—the hand free of finger puppets.

"Cora, those are Stiles’s things," Laura cautioned.

"She can have ‘em," Stiles replied with no hesitation, handing the three bracelets to Cora but retaining the red one for himself—because red was his favorite color and he needed that one.

"Say ‘thank you, Stiles’!" Derek cut in his instruction to Cora before Laura could.

Cora parroted the words.

"You’re welcome!" Stiles replied, already back to exploring his treasure trove.

"That was generous of you, Stiles," Claudia chimed in.

Stiles just looked at his mom. One word was new.

"Giving Cora your bracelets was _generous_ of you _._ "

Still looking at her but now without the question in his eyes, Stiles’s response was intended to assure her, "I’ll say it later, Mom."

Over pizza the holiday afternoon was reviewed for Papa Hale: the most amazing decorations seen, the favorite costumes other trick-or-treaters wore.

Stiles couldn’t remember which houses it had come from but he remembered he’d gotten great candy.

Derek had just _known_ his mom would let them have some of their Halloween booty and he was right. With her eyes on Claudia’s Talia said everyone could have two pieces of candy for dessert.

Cora was happy to let her daddy have some of hers.

Stiles had been waiting to get to his Reese’s Pieces _forever_.

Derek picked out sourballs, which he discovered produced an interesting flavor in his mouth when he could still taste pizza.

Just as the bustle of goodbyes had begun Derek called Stiles aside.

"I got these temporary tattoos, Stiles. You can have them."

" _Thanks, dude!_ " Stiles gasped, awed at what he saw in Derek’s hand.

Derek swallowed his request not to be called "dude."

"You can share them with Scott, just don’t tell him I gave them to you. OK?"

"’K." If Stiles hadn’t been still admiring the tattoo strips he might have wondered why he had to keep that secret. But a secret shared with Derek felt like a right thing, OK and fun to have.

Then Derek held out a plastic egg in the palm of his hand.

"Would you like this?"

Stiles was fixated on the tattoos until he saw the little egg. _Of course_ he wanted it.

"What is it?" he asked.

With a bit of magician’s flair Derek removed the egg’s top half.

"It’s Silly Putty." He removed the putty and offered it to Stiles, who shuddered involuntarily when he squeezed the squishy mass. But it was the fun kind of gross, though, so he liked it.

"You gave those bracelets to Cora, so you can have these," Derek explained calmly.

"Stiles," came Claudia’s voice. "Come on, Stiles, say good bye and thank Miss Talia for our fun day and for the pizza."

Hands clutching his new gifts Stiles hugged Derek tightly then with a "Bye!" seemed to leap away.

The departure procession moved the small crowd outdoors. Malcolm had lit at least a dozen jack-o-lanterns on the back porch and out into the yard.

"Cool!" Stiles and Scott decreed in chorus at the pumpkins’ glowing eyes and toothy grins.

"I carved that one," Derek pointed out, proudly and without disclosing under how much supervision he’d done the carving.

Stiles repeated "Cool," only this time more drawn out.

While his mom secured Scott in his seat Stiles tarried behind with Derek next to his jack-o-lantern art. Derek had carved only two large front teeth in its crescent mouth.

"Goodnight, Stiles."

"G’night! G’night, Derek!" Stiles hopped in place once or twice and then ran away to the Jeep.

"Bye, Derek!" he called again from his seat before Claudia closed the Jeep’s back door.

After they’d driven away Derek lingered on the porch, for the night air, which his family knew he truly loved, especially after any time away from it. He looked into the deep dark of the woods which weren’t all that far away ahead of him. He thought about how Halloween wasn’t that night’s name at first and how it was supposed to be the night the borders between worlds became thin enough that the dead could return to walk among the living and spirits could been seen without their bodies.

And even though Derek didn’t believe there were any such things as zombies and ghosts, he went indoors then, relieved the only souls he knew about still looked at him from faces he loved.

Claudia had made Stiles put on a hoodie sweatshirt before they’d left the Hales. Stiles was glad about it now because he’d been able to pocket a strip of temporary tattoos to give Scott on the ride home.

But Scott was sleeping, his head drooped over. So Stiles just admired the Silly Putty egg, which he’d also stashed in the hoodie’s other pocket, for his own entertainment.

It was such a cool thing. Derek was so great.

"Mom?" Stiles queried from behind her.

"Hmm, Stiles?" Claudia answered, in that particular tone of voice that made lullabies most effective.

Stiles sat back but never took his eyes off the egg he rolled over and over in his quick fingers. Through a yawn he declared matter-of-factly, "Derek’s great."

　


End file.
